I’m sure you’ve all heard about Scott Pruitt having an aide badger Chik-fil-A into giving his wife a franchise. Hey, they’ll need an income when Scotty stops grifting the EPA. It’s gotten so bad that Gret Stet Senator John Neely Kennedy publicly urged Scotty to “stop acting like a moron.” The national media has learned what the Louisiana press has known for years: Neely likes spouting off on teevee and usually has a corny one-liner saved up. If he weren’t a Republican, I might offer to supply him with some Neelyisms but he is so I won’t. Besides, I’m not adept at Hee Haw humor.
Back to Scott Pruitt. The reason I call him a chickenshit grifter is that he’s fond of grifting relatively small amounts aka chickenfeed or chickenshit. He’s even been asked to stop messing up the White House mess by eating there so much. Yo, Scotty: pay your tab, it’s only 400 bucks. In short, this is chickenshit grifting at its smallest and pettiest. Avarice thy name is Scotty.
I was astonished when this tweet landed on my timeline:
— Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) June 6, 2018
I checked to make sure this was an genuine Fox News feed. It is indeed and it’s actually “fair and balanced.” I didn’t know they were allowed to criticize Scotty. This could be a signal to the Insult Comedian that it’s time to stop watching Scotty grift. Grift, Scotty, grift.
One would think that, as a major criminal, Trump would be offended by the picayune and penny-ante antics of Scotty. They’re both grifters but Scotty is strictly small time. He’s hanging on because the president* likes his terrible policies but he can turn on a dime; just ask Trudeau or Macron. I wonder when Scotty will ask for a pardon. Let’s start the countdown…
Whenever I think of Chik-fil-A, I think of this masterful float by the Krewe du Vieux sub-kreme, Seeds of Decline, as well as this photo by my erstwhile nemesis, Michael Homan.
Photograph by Michael Homan.
Since I refuse to give Homan the last word, I might as well expel this disgusting earworm from my head.
One of these days I’ll write new lyrics and transform that horrendous tune into Watching Scotty Grift. There could even be an alternate version, Watching Scotty Blow.
The answer, my friend, is grifting in the wind, the answer is grifting in the wind.
The forecast was dire for last Saturday’s Krewe du Vieux parade. I am the Krewe of Spank’s voice of weather doom but I was wrong. It poured off and on until 3:30 PM, then the front moved on leaving us with slightly slippery streets and a dry parade.
Krewe of SPANK, which always mounts ambitious floats and even more ambitious themes, paid tribute to the pushme-pullyu over New Orleans’ status as a sanctuary city with the theme “SPANK-tuary City” and a float with an elaborate, moving whack-a-mole game.
Time to edit the editor. There’s no hyphen in Spanktuary, dude. It’s our pun and we’ll decide how to punctuate the sucker. Besides, we’ve used that moniker for our annual parade route party since its inception. Additionally, it’s Spank-a-Mole as you can see in these pictures taken by Dr. A:
Spank-a-Mole is a game of endurance wherein you beat the mole into submission. That’s what the anti-Trump resistance has to do: keep spanking the ugly orange mole. I understand the SOTU was an endurance test as well. I skipped it. 80 minutes of an Insult Comedian with a dead nutria atop his head? No thanks.
It’s time for some non-Spanky pictures involving members of Drips and Discharges. They mocked pervy NOLA celebrity chef John Besh. This headpiece won the parade:
My buddy Brother Bob Bolin is also in Drips. Here he is slumming it with me:
Here’s a close up of Bob’s sign:
A reminder: Krewe du Vieux is a homemade parade. All the work was done by the talented members of the various sub-krewes. That’s what makes it so distinctive and great. The satire is pretty darn good as well
A quick shout-out to my fellow Spankster and Deadhead David Martin for turning me on to the marvelous parade route photo by David Aguiar. Thanks, man. To read more about the parade take a closer look at Kevin’s instant analysis.
Finally, this year members of the Krewe of Spank costumed as Lady Liberty with blue togas. We looked like an inebriated gang as we marched. I’m not sure if we were the Jets or the Sharks. We *were* the first Blue Wave of 2018:
Tonight is the Krewe du Vieux parade. This last week has been fraught for a variety of reasons, especially the weather. Marching several miles in the driving rain has little appeal to me. I suspect that the overall theme of Bienville’s Wet Dream was tempting fate. That’s why I’m keeping this snappy.
We do have a theme song. Why Smack Dab In The Middle? I originally thought the Krewe of Spank would be in the middle of the parade. I was wrong. Woe is me, bop.
It’s still a great song. We have two versions for your listening pleasure: Joe Williams with the Count Basie Orchestra and Ry Cooder live with the Chicken Skin Band.
I have one article to share with you. Local writer and Tulane professor Richard Campanella is our king this year. Rich has written a piece for the Zombie Picayune that offers a virtual tour of the route. I hope he has some suitably regal rain gear so he can stay drier than Buster:
That’s it for this abbreviated edition of Saturday Odds & Sods. The last word goes to the two-legged Paul Drake and Della Street. Their four-legged compatriots will have to wait.
It’s been cloudy, damp, warm, and foggy in New Orleans this week. It’s the sort of weather that makes you want to grunt gutterally. I’m not quite sure what that means but I found myself saying ugh a lot of late.
The Krewe of Spank finally has a theme for the upcoming Krewe du Vieux parade. It’s going to be hard to get it done in time for January 26th. We’ll just have to have a Tim Gunn moment and:
My friends Cait and Dave had their annual Chrismukkah retro party last Saturday. It was a howling success and I paid the price the next day. There were tasty retro dishes, which all seemed to be stoner food, even the ones once shared at a Midwestern church supper. There was also a modest bonfire in the backyard. I sat by it for a while and wound up smelling like a campfire.
I'm relieved that nobody reenacted the camp fire scene in Blazing Saddles last night at the retro party.
There’s obviously no theme song this week, so I’ll post some holiday fare from The Smithereens and Cyndi Lauper.
I’m not in the mood to write about the news of the day, so all I got for you are some regular features. My little gray cells need respite from the blizzard of bad news.
Separated At Birth: In our continuing attempt to humanize Team Trump, I give you Beavis and Kellyanne Conway.
I should apologize to Beavis for comparing him to the genuinely awful Conway. Even if he’s a toon, he’s a much better person. Funnier too: the Great Cornholio was a stitch.
Conway threatened to sue over this image when it popped up last February. It seems to have never happened. Another day, another lie.
Speaking of classic Christmas movies; we weren’t? Let’s do it anyway.
Saturday GIF Horse: Dr. A and I watched Christmas In Connecticut on TCM last night. It’s time for a lazy self-quote of what I said about it in my Christmas movie post:
It’s a farce in Christmas film drag featuring Barbara Stanwyck trying to con her publisher Sydney Greenstreet. What’s not to love about a film that includes SZ Sakall in the cast? There’s apparently a remake of this 1942 classic, which I’ve never seen. I hate remakes, especially when the justification is that the original is in black and white.
Stanwyck’s character claims to be the ultimate homemaker but she cannot cook. In this week’s GIF horse, SZ (Cuddles) Sakall teaches her how to flip a flapjack.
She does not get the hang of it just as he cannot get the hang of how to say “hunky dory.” Instead he says “hunky dunky” in his cute Hungarian accent. Btw, Cuddles was a nickname the studio hung on the poor bastard. Apparently, all was not hunky dunky at Warner Brothers.
Are you ready to rock?
Saturday Classic: Brian Setzer has carved a niche for himself as a tattooed Christmas rocker. Nobody does it better or rocks it harder.
Dig That Crazy Christmas was released in 2005 and was Setzer’s second holiday opus.
That’s it for this week. I hope everyone has a happy holiday or muddles through. Remember: the key to a happy yuletide is spiked eggnog or your favorite adult beverage. I’ll give the last word on this Christmas Eve Eve to the cast of All About Eve. Who else?
Athenae offered up wholesome thanks to everyone who supported the First Draft fundraiser. I’m offering up weird thanks: a few pictures from Saturday’s massive Krewe du Vieux party/fundraiser, the Brew Doo or is that Dieux? Beats the hell outta me, y’all.
The Krewe of Spank has our own deeply twisted fundraising game: the Dirty Weiner Drop. Players climb a ladder and attempt to drop a dirty weiner on the target. In past years, Bobby Jindal and David Vitter have been among our targets. We like to keep it local, y’all. That’s why this year’s target was celebrity perv, Chef John Besh:
We have “crappy prizes” for the weiner winners. This year’s prizes were actually pretty good. But nobody wanted to take this Devil Doll donated by my little buddy Ryan:
Our den neighbors, the Krewe of Drips and Discharges, won the night with their Voodoo Trump Dick Doll. Dr. A bought one but I’m too lazy to photograph it so I stole this picture from my friend Brother Bob Bolin:
Btw, Brother Bob is no relation to former Giants pitcher, Bob Bolin; not that anyone but Doc or I give a shit about such things.
Thanks again for your support and for pitching in and making our fundraiser a success. The last word goes to (who else?) Sly & the Family Stone:
It’s been a weird week in New Orleans. I know, this is a weird place so why is that surprising? It’s not but I had a deeply strange encounter with a City Council candidate who I do not plan to vote for. Here’s how I described it at Zuckerville:
Having the temperament to work with the rest of the councilmembers is of the utmost importance – nothing passes the City Council without a minimum of four votes. Seth Bloom has habitually displayed a lack of self-restraint, professionalism, respect, and sincerity as he has campaigned for another public office. I am convinced that Seth Bloom is volatile, hostile, and vindictive – the residents of District B deserve better. The City of New Orleans deserves better.
BURN.
The good news is that his run-off opponent, Jay Banks, is qualified, famous for being nice, and was King Zulu in 2016. How you like dem coconuts, Bloomy?
Speaking of the 2017 New Orleans run-off election, my latest column on the increasingly bat shit crazy mayor’s race is up at the Bayou Brief: An Uncanny Mess.
I’ve been feeling a bit anti-social of late. That’s one reason I selected Don’t Get Around Much Anymore as this week’s theme song, but mostly because it’s a fucking great song. It was written in 1940 as an instrumental by Duke Ellington. The original title was Never No Lament:
Bob Russell’s lyrics were added two years later. I’m glad they changed the title: Never No Lament doesn’t sound like a hit to me.
We have three versions for your listening pleasure. First, the Ink Spots’ mega-hit version. Second, the Duke and Louis Armstrong from what many call their genius sessions. Immodest but true. Finally, my favorite version. It was arranged by Billy May for the great Nat King Cole.
There’s nothing quite as good as jazz Nat even though lush string pop Nate is pretty swell as well. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s jump to the break.
First, thank you for making our Houston Food Bank fundraiser such a rousing success. We raised more than $3,100. Our readers and friends are the best even if Della Street is trying to hog the credit. Let’s say thanks with a cat meme:
It’s been a difficult week. I don’t have the all-out Saturday Odds & Sods spirit so I’m going to do something a bit different. I feel like a pitcher who gave it his all in his last start but has no stuff in his next outing. In short, I have that ennui that the late Ashley Morris warned us about:
One reason for my ennui is Hurricane Harvey. Everyone who lives in New Orleans long enough has ties to Houston. Plus, the people of Houston helped us in innumerable ways after and during Katrina and the federal flood as my friend Clancy DuBos pointed out in the Gambit Tabloid. It’s dispiriting to see people evacuated from their homes by helicopter and boat. It makes me queasy and gives me a sinking feeling. Pun intended; it always is. I’m not sure if one should call it PTSD or survivor’s guilt but I got it bad and that ain’t good.
The other thing on my mind is Oscar’s health. There has been a recent influx of street cats in our neighborhood, which has resulted in Oscar marking his territory inside the house. Marking is, of course, a polite term for peeing. The good news is that he only marks in one place and on towels we’ve provided. We took him to the vet last week and none of our worst case scenarios materialized. It’s all in his pretty big-eyed head. So, our vet gave him what we like to call kitty Prozac.
The jury is still out as to whether the kitty Prozac will work because Della freaked out for the first five days after Oscar returned home from 2 hours at the vet; something that had never happened with our past cats. Catblogging fans know that Oscar and Della are besties. In fact, our running joke is that she’s Oscar’s cat. The good news is that she’s back to normal. The bad news is that we’re starting from square one with Oscar and his meds. Hopefully, we can teach this old cat some new tricks. It would be nice not to feel like a combination geriatric cat nurse and laundryman. In short, I am worn the fuck out by the situation. Thanks for listening, y’all.
This week’s theme song is a no-brainer, a good thing since my little gray cells are frazzled. Stormy Weather was written by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler in 1933. Here are versions by two of my favorite divas.
This week’s edition eschews links to long form articles and if you think I’m eschewing up, what can I tell you? It’s going to be a bit more like a First Draft Potpourri post only without the smelly stuff. Btw, potpourri is one of those words I cannot spell without thinking about it. I guess that makes me a piss pourri poor excuse for a writer…
Holy Freudian Slip, Batman: A certain president* neglected to use his spell checker whilst tweeting. I reckoned he might delete it so I took a screen shot:
Trump *is* a heel who thinks that healing Texas will be fast and easy. It will not and cannot be. Recovery is a long slog. In fact, help will be needed in Southeast Texas long after the teevee cameras are gone and Trump is removed from office. Believe me.
I suspect the relief agencies will be singing this song as they wait and wait and wait for Trump’s check:
Silly Bare Naked Canadians.
Tweets Of The Week: They both come from First Drafters or is that Draftees? I’m not quite sure which.
I took this photo back in NOLA post-K. It's universal. Treat people how you'd want to be treated- it's what's right and could be you someday pic.twitter.com/lFRileMPYb
Scout appears to have streamlined her twitter account so the picture is gone with the wind. It’s a photo of a woman holding a sign saying Our Fate Is Your Fate, which became the title of the First Draft anthology.
The next tweet comes from lil’ ole me on a windy day in New Orleans:
It's windy enough Uptown to blow off the dead nutria atop Trump's head.
Let’s play some music before shutting things down.
Saturday Classic:The Band by The Band sounds like it should be a debut album. It’s their second record. Hardcore fans call it The Brown Album. Boring title notwithstanding, it’s a great album.
I hope everyone has a labor free Labor Day weekend. Even though I hate the heat, I will be marching (sweating is more like it) with the Krewe of Spank in the Southern Decadence parade tomorrow. There may even be some biblebangers protesting since it’s a gay thing. They’ll leave me alone, I’ll be wielding my Spank paddle. In fact, we’ll have a bunch of them. Thwack.
That’s it for this week. I’ll give Oscar the last word with a re-meming of the fundraiser picture. I hope the dear boy is feeling better soon.
As I said in the last Saturday post,I’m burnt out on Lost Cause Fest. I’m ready to move on but as Michael Corleone said in Godfather III: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” In Michael’s case it was La Cosa Nostra, in my case it’s the Lost Causers. And that is why Mississippi State Representative Karl Oliver is malaka of the week.
Malaka Oliver fits into the category of “honorees” I’ve never heard of before and hope to never hear from again. His sole current claim to fame is a Facebook post that surfaced via Mississippi Today:
I’m glad that so many posted screen shots of this unhinged rant because it may disappear much like the Lost Cause itself; other Mississippi GOPers have condemned the remarks because he used the L word: LYNCHED. It’s a word that should never be used but seems to be making a comeback in the age of pro-Trump alt-right shitbirds.
Lost Causers like Malaka Oliver aren’t big on facts. It was not the “leadership of Louisiana” that removed (not destroyed) the white supremacy monuments, it was the City of New Orleans. I remember when conservatives favored local self-government but that seems be a cause as lost as the Civil War and Jim Crow. As Mayor Mitch Landrieu put it while the Lee statue was coming down:
“The Civil War is over; the Confederacy lost and we are better for it.”
That would appear to be evident but apparently denial is a river that runs through Karl Oliver’s district. It’s a Lost Cause because y’all lost the war. Unfortunately, they won the peace both on the ground and in the history books. That’s life in what Gore Vidal (who had deep Southern roots) called “The United States of Amnesia.”
This is an issue of local self-government. If other municipalities choose not to remove their monuments, ain’t nobody’s business but their own. I don’t believe in telling other people what to think or believe. It’s up to them. Malaka Oliver would be wise to mind his beeswax and butt out. And that is why Lost Causer Karl Oliver is malaka of the week.
I have some Lost Cause Fest lagniappe. First, a letter to the editor published by the Advocate, which is, in a word, unhinged. It’s amusing to see my yuppie, gentrifying Mayor referred to as having “a program of Social Marxism.”
Finally, my own Krewe of Spank posted this reminder of 2016’s Arthur Hard-On Mardi Gras Guide on the book of faces. The post wouldn’t embed, but here’s the picture:
This week’s catblogging features a snapshot of Oscar snoozing next to my Krewe du Vieux costume a few weeks ago. The bag he’s sleeping on contains a krewemate’s costume. All Oscar knows is that it’s comfortable and that’s all the matters to a cat:
Dennie the Den of Muses cat found an unusual spot to nap last week before Krewe Du Vieux marched. She spent much of the week lying on the back of a Krewe of Craps built effigy of Donald Trump in the stocks. It was tremendous. Believe me.
Here are a variety of pictures taken by my krewe-mates Wendar, Chris, Jennifer, and, of course, Dr. A. The last picture features my old pal Loki.
Finally, this is the best picture of Dennie. What cat doesn’t like scritches?
It’s not original to think that the 21st Century Republican party *always* puts power before country. It’s Athenae’s pet hobby-horse. She wrote quite eloquently about it just yesterday. It’s time for me to climb on back of said rocking horse and join in. I’ll try not to break it. That would be too much like Henry Drummond’s Golden Dancer story in Inherit The Wind for my taste, and I try not to be overly derivative.
I was seven years old, and a very fine judge of rocking horses. Golden Dancer had a bright red mane, blue eyes, and she was gold all over, with purple spots. When the sun hit her stirrups, she was a dazzling sight to see. But she was a week’s wages for my father. So Golden Dancer and I always had a plate-glass window between us. But—let’s see, it wasn’t Christmas; must’ve been my birthday—I woke up in the morning and there was Golden Dancer at the foot of my bed! Ma had skimped on the groceries, and my father’d worked nights for a month. I jumped into the saddle and started to rock— And it broke! It split in two! The wood was rotten, the whole thing was put together with spit and sealing wax! All shine, and no substance! Whenever you see something bright, shining, perfect-seeming—all gold, with purple spots—look behind the paint! And if it’s a lie—show it up for what it really is!
That’s how Republicans *should* have reacted to the Trump phenomenon from the git-go. The Trump “movement” is all shine and no substance, much like the Insult Comedian’s taste for gaudy, glitzy, goldleafy decor. I shuddered when I heard that the Trumps might redecorate the White House living quarters. It’s the people’s house and the thought of any of it resembling Trump Tower is nauseating. In the immortal words of Garth Algar: “I think I’m gonna hurl.” Holy crap, I’ve gone from Spencer Tracy and Fredric March to Mike Myers and Dana Carvey. And I’m okay with that. 2017 is the 25th anniversary of Wayne’s World, after all. Excellent. Party time.
Where the hell was I? Oh yeah, the rottenness beneath the surface shine of conservative ideology. They’ve made a deal with the devil to get tax cuts for the 1% and to take away people’s health care among other horrors. It’s being done in the name of freedom but it’s really just selfishness. In that way, Donald Trump epitomizes what has happened to the GOP since the Reaganite wave election in 1980. Who’s more selfish than the Insult Comedian? If you know anyone, please keep them away from me.
In the wake of the Out like Flynn moment, there was a fleeting notion that Congressional Republicans might conduct a proper inquiry of the improper Russian connection. That moment has already passed because they realize this fiasco is apt to land at Donald’s doorstep. He was warned weeks ago that Flynn was susceptible to blackmail and nothing happened until Monday night. Why? I believe Trump (aka Putin’s Pawn) knew of, and initiated, Flynn’s contacts with Putin’s people. Flynn is not the only senior administration* official who has been compromised by the Russians: every word spoken, and action taken, by Trump indicates that he is susceptible to KGB-style blackmail. As Josh Marshall put it this morning: Flynn doesn’t matter. This is about Trump.
I’m not sure where this is headed. Events have been Russian by at a break neck pace. Flynn resigned while I was publishing my post about him, which had my head spinning like Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist. It’s certain that Trump administration* is headed for the rocks, it’s only a question of how extensive the damage is and who will be forced to jump overboard along with Flynn. It’s irrelevant whether he was pushed or jumped. The scariest thing about this week’s events is that Bannon is piloting the ship. The B3 Brownshirts are trying to turn the White House into the Brown House. They’ve even unleashed Bannon’s creature Stephen Miller on the media. Unlike the rocker, he’s no Joker. Maurice would kick the little bastard in the balls.
There’s been a lot of discussion about prosecuting Flynn and other Trumpers for violations of the Logan Act. I, for one, am leery of that idea. The statute has been on the books since 1799 and it has only been invoked twice with no convictions. It was passed by a Federalist Congress and signed by President John Adams. It was aimed at the Jeffersonian Republicans who sided with the more radical factions of the French Revolution. In short, it was designed as political payback. It was mentioned by pro-Roosevelt forces during the isolationist America First moment but was never used. Wise choice.
Dusting off a 218-year-old statute to go after the Trumpers is a bad idea as far as this lapsed lawyer is concerned. It is a very frail reed and could easily be ruled unconstitutional if tested in the courts. That means anyone convicted under the law would walk and the GOPers would scream political persecution. The potential for backfire outweighs any positives.
The Logan Act is much like Golden Dancer in Henry Drummond’s story. A conviction obtained under it would be like Henry’s rocking horse: “The wood was rotten, the whole thing was put together with spit and sealing wax! All shine, and no substance!”
There’s an understandable temptation to fight fire with fire and sink to the Republicans level. I’m all for the resistance but we lose if we become carbon copies of them. Unlike our enemies, I believe in putting country before power.
I’ll give Spencer Tracy as the Clarence Darrow-like Henry Drummond the last word:
Krewe du Vieux rolled on Saturday night. It was a blast to march through the streets of the Marigny, Quarter, and CDB. I did my share of spanking and handing out throws. The Krewe of Spank’s theme was strictly local as you’ll see below but several Krewes did Trumpian themes. Below are two of the better efforts.
First, the Krewe of Mishigas with a sci-fi twist:
That’s right, it’s Jabba the Trump.
Second, the Krewe of KAOS. Their marchers dressed as droogs, which was simultaneously brilliant and simple.
The first set of photos were taken by my old friend Brian. He also captured us Spanksters as we milled about whilst stalled. I’m not in the picture but Dr. A is:
Spank has always done local satire. This year’s theme took a poke at JazzFest. We’ll begin with two views of the float taken by my pal, Christy Boom Boom Brackenberg:
Dig that crazy Spank-o-vision, y’all.
One of our throws was a sensation and still has the twittering classes abuzz. It’s a two-sided post card-sized parody of the JazzFest schedule cubes:
The cubes are, of course, loaded with fictional and wildly inappropriate acts.
A few quick notes:
Krewe du Vieux is *always* cold except for 2017. It was in the mid-70’s, which meant it was hotter than hell as we marched in our costumes. It was unnatural. We’re supposed to shiver, not sweat.
There are people in Krewe du Vieux who didn’t get the Glass Menagerie pun. The Glorious Bird weeps.
The crowd was huge and better behaved in the Quarter than in past years. Of course, it helps when you’re wielding one of these:
And yes, people want to be spanked on the parade route. I don’t have any pictures of me doing so, all I have for you is this tweet:
At one point on Royal St, I spanked ten asses in a row. A new personal best.
It’s the most wonderful day of the year, for me at least. Krewe du Vieux rolls at 6:30. That’s why the full-blown madness that is Saturday Odds & Sods has been dialed back this week. I’m too busy Krewe of Spanking, y’all.
I do, however, have a theme song: Night Parade from Robbie Robertson’s Storyville album. We march not far from where the red light district was located. It’s long gone. Time for some music. Hit it, Robbie:
I may not have a Saturday post extravaganza this week but I do have an Insult Comedian meme courtesy of my Spank krewe mate David M:
That’s it for now. I’ll be back next week with a post that has more meat on the bone.
Krewe du Vieuxrolls tomorrow, which means I’m sharing some pictures of Dennie the Den of Muses cat. Since I belong to the Krewe of Spank, I considered calling this post Spanks For The Mammaries but I didn’t want Bob Hope’s estate on my ass…
I’m not sure if Dennie thought she could nurse on the busty bust, but ya never know.
Another week, another mural as the featured image. Hale Woodruffis an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice. If you don’t recognize Trump’s Frederick Douglass quote, I have failed as a blogger.
It has been a Krewe of Spank-centric week at Adrastos World HQ. We’ve been helping with the float, buying costume bits, and even went to a pizza-n-shirt-iron-on party. Bet you’ve never done that. We also drank beer. Bet you’ve done that.
This week’s theme song was selected with our politically chaotic moment in mind. I am mindful of the fact that Trouble In Mind was written in 1924 by jazz pianist Richard Jones. It has been recorded oodles of time by oodles of artists. I have selected worthy versions by Big Bill Broonzy, Nina Simone, and the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty of the post only without the dirt or the band. That’s right, this post will be unbroken…
“I asked Miss Rosa Parks [in 1988] why didn’t she go to the back of the bus, given the threat that she could be hurt, pushed off the bus, and run over, because three other ladies did get up. She said she thought about going to the back of the bus. But then she thought about Emmett Till and she couldn’t do it.”
There’s a new book about the murder of Emmett Till wherein author Timothy Tyson got the woman who was allegedly the target of unwanted attention by Till to admit that nothing much really happened. Vanity Fair’s Sheila Weller has the details.
It’s abundantly clear that the Current Occupant has no knowledge of the Civil Rights movement or how important it is to many of us. It didn’t involve him directly so it’s off his radar screen. I suspect Trump and his dreadful, racist daddy regarded the movement as a nuisance. It made it harder for them to discriminate against black folks in their apartment buildings in the outer boroughs, after all. So it goes.
We go from the crime that inspired the Civil Rights movement to a look at how Hollywood is taking on the Insult Comedian.
The New Culture War: We tend to think of Pats Buchanan and Robertson when we think about the culture war. Buchanan’s 1992 GOP convention speech scared the living shit out of middle-American and was a factor in Poppy Bush’s defeat. Thanks, Pat.
The culture war used to be a right-wing thing. It no longer is. The Guardian’s Stuart Jeffries takes a look at how Hollywoodand others on the left are standing up to the Insult Comedian. My favorite bit involves the divine Julia Louis-Dreyfus:
At last Sunday’s Screen Actors Guild awards in Hollywood, barely anyone who got to the stage failed to denounce Donald Trump’s immigrant ban. Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, for instance, accepting her award for outstanding performance by a female actor in a comedy series with her portrayal of a (with all due respect) venal and useless president, said: “I am the daughter of an immigrant. My father fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France, and I am an American patriot … I love this country. I am horrified by its blemishes. This immigrant ban is a blemish, and it is un-American.”
Her speech came from the heart and was clearly not written by Selina Meyer’s staff. They would have found a way to fuck it up and elect Hugh Laurie President…
There’s already a backlash over comments like Julia’s and Meryl Streep’s but, frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn. The rank hypocrisy on the right about celebrities in politics is breathtaking. The GOP elected an actor President, sent Gopher from The Love Boat and Sonny Bono to Congress, and now they complain about free speech from Julia and Meryl. As the Cowardly Lion would surely say, DA NOIVE. I fed Siri that sentence and she had a nervous breakdown. It was most amusing.
Speaking of the culture wars, our next segment takes a look at cursing. Hmm, I wonder if we still have a fuck quota at First Draft.
Fucking Around: There’s amotherfucking good review at the New York Review of Books by Joan Acocella of two bloody buggery bollocky books about swearing. You should read the fucker.Fuckin’ A.
Speaking of people who got fucked over, here’s a look back at Grateful Dead’s 1970 arrest in New Orleans. They did not return to the Crescent City until 1988.
Busted Down On Bourbon Street: The Grateful Dead were “set up like a bowling pin” in New Orleans on January 31, 1970. The city fathers were terrified that hippies would overrun the city and interfere with their drinking. They simply could not have that.
There’s a fun look back at Live For Live Music.com. I can say fun because nothing much came of the bust except for semi-lurid headlines and this mug shot of a certain lead guitar player:
Notice that Jerry had the good sense to smile, not glower in his mugshot. Never let the bastards see you sweat.
I obviously have to post a version of Truckin’ at this juncture. This is a good ‘un complete with tight musicianship and sloppy vocals, both trademarks of the good old Grateful Dead:
Let’s move on to a sporadic Odds & Sods feature:
Separated At Birth? I added a question mark because I’m not 100% sure this works but it cracked me up when I saw it on the Tweeter Tube.
Just imagine it: Denis Leary in The Bowling Green Massacre. He really needs to wear Kellyanne Liar’s inauguration day outfit:
Let’s move from the ridiculous to the sublime.
Saturday Classic: I posted the Queen of Soul earlier, it’s time to listen to the King of Soul, Otis Redding. Note that the album begins with Ole Man Trouble. It has nothing to do with the Insult Comedian but we do have more than our share of trouble right now.
That’s it for this week. We’ll be back with more hijinks and shenanigans next week. Who better to have the last word than three Jokers? Heath, Jack, and Cesar beat the hell out of the joker in the White House. Figuratively, not literally.
It’s the time of year when I turn my attention to the zany, madcap antics of the satirical parade Krewe du Vieux. KdV is an umbrella organization made up of sub-krewes who design and execute our own floats and costumes. You may recall that I belong to the Krewe of Spank. In 2014, Spank’s theme was Welcome to Dizneylandrieu. It was our masterpiece wherein we mocked our pompous Mayor for encouraging the gentrification sweeping New Orleans post-Katrina. We called him Mitchey Mayor and marched as Mitchketeers. It’s a small fucking world, after all. Long before our take on the Gentrified Kingdom, locals bridled at attempts to transform the French Quarter-indeed the city itself-into Disneyland on the Bayou. Here we go again.
An unprecedented number of electronic eyes will soon be deployed throughout New Orleans, watching over 20 different neighborhoods, tracking vehicles to assist police as they search for suspects and scanning French Quarter revelers to look for hidden weapons.
The massive security deployment, part of a $40 million crime-prevention plan unveiled Monday, includes pumping public and private video feeds into a centralized New Orleans Police Department command center that will be monitored around the clock.
“Here’s the first thing I want everyone to know: When you go on Bourbon Street now, everything you do will be seen,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said.
The proposal, drafted in the wake of a shooting on Bourbon Street on Thanksgiving weekend that left one person dead and nine wounded, also calls for efforts to tamp down on the atmosphere of street partying and entertainment that often overtakes areas of the Quarter into the early morning hours.
While no closing times will be imposed, bars across the city will be required to keep their doors closed after 3 a.m. to discourage patrons from spilling outside, and an early morning spraying of Bourbon Street will further discourage revelry there.
Here we go again. This scheme is an overreaction to bad press every time some jerk with a gun and no impulse control loses their shit after getting shitfaced drunk. That’s almost always the nature of crime in the Quarter. It’s the hardest type of crime to predict, deter, or prevent. In lieu of any meaningful attempts to deal with gun violence, there will be 24-hour surveillance of people getting hammered and doing stupid shit on Bourbon Street.
There’s so much drunken malakatude on Bourbon Street that separating the dangerous assholes from garden variety assholes is a job best performed by foot patrols. The city is already full of “crime cameras” that do not work, why are we to believe that this will be any different? It’s called throwing money at a problem to counter bad publicity. $40 million is a lot of scratch, y’all.
The Mayor attempted to defuse criticism of this misbegotten scheme by extending the surveillance net to other “hot spots” around the city. That’s unlikely to work. Plans like this come down the pike every so often, and city government is all talk and no enforcement. It’s another in a long series of publicity stunts aimed at making white people feel safe in a majority African-American city. Short-term solutions rarely solve long-term problems, but what really matters is that tourists feel safer. #Sarcasm. In short, it’s an expensive PR stunt as opposed to a serious crime prevention proposal.
For many locals, the most controversial part of the plan is the bit about bars having to shut their doors at 3 AM. There are several bars within a 2 block radius of Adrastos World HQ, they keep their doors open all night, and we hear nary a peep. 24-hour bars may sound odd to some of you, but it’s part of the city’s culture. The only reason they should have to shut their doors is if they’re bothering the neighbors. Besides, there’s no longer smoking in bars (something I support) so smokers are going to spill on to the sidewalk in any event. Is the city planning to send inspectors out in the wee hours to enforce this scheme? I am dubious.
Here’s the deal: I’m not much of a bar person nowadays. I have poor hearing so I have difficulty following conversation in a loud barroom. That doesn’t mean that I don’t understand the vibrant bar culture of New Orleans. The Mayor apparently does not. He’s beginning to remind me of H.L. Mencken’s line about puritanism: “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
You cannot save a city by denying its very essence and turning it into a sanitized version of itself. Welcome back to Mitchey Mayor’s Gentrified Kingdom:
We do things differently in New Orleans. We know how to put a joyful spin on the direst situation. That’s what happened last Friday as the Insult Comedian took the oath of office and gave his B3 alt-right “American carnage” speech. A crowd gathered at Armstrong Park in Treme and threw a political jazz funeral full of music, mirth, mockery, and, of course, costumes.
I did not costume as I decided to attend the day before. I went instead for a Krewe du Vieux gentile rabbinical look:
Photograph by Julie Graybill.
That’s me with two of my favorite people in New Orleans: Andy and Bob. Self-described lefty carpenter Andy built the coffin for Lady Liberty. It was an overcast day in the Crescent City, which explains my pallor. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. It’s hard being a gentile rabbi in the city.
There were some amazing costumes as you can see below. One might call this Pussygrabber and the Walking Vaginas. Sounds like a swell band name to me.
Photograph by Dakinikat.
Please give them a tiny hand of applause for their creativity.
My official blog photographer had to work and I didn’t take any decent pictures because I was preoccupied with a feline health scare. Oscarrefused to eat and hid from us that morning. I think it may have been the general vibe of Inauguration Day: he’s a very empathetic cat who takes a dim view of the man whose hair resembles a nutria pelt. In any event, he was back to normal by that evening. Let’s just call it an anti-Trump hunger strike.
The march was great fun and lifted our spirits considerably. As we walked down Canal Street, some tourists gathered to watch. I loudly encouraged them to join in and some did. There was also a couple in a hotel room who waved and took pictures of the march. The only reason it’s noteworthy is that they were wrapped in towels or sheets. Probably honeymooners.
One highlight of the day was running into an old acquaintance, Campbell Robertson. He’s the Gray Lady’s man in New Orleans. I had the pleasure of introducing him to event spokesperson Annie Spell as “Campbell Robertson of the failing New York Times.” I introduced him as such to several friends including my two-woman Krewe of Spank posse of Jennifer and Lyndsey. They deserve special mention because they were my cocktail techs and brought me a Pimm’s Cup when we reached the riverfront Moonwalk. Thanks, y’all.
The one discordant note of the day occurred on the riverfront. The Moonwalk is named for the current mayor’s father, former Mayor Moon Landrieu. It’s a swell place to sit on a bench and watch life on the Big Muddy. It’s also a popular spot for some of the more aggressive homeless men to congregate; one of whom was NOT amused by the marchers. I believe he called us Moonwalk moonbats or some such shit.
That’s right, a really scuzzy homeless guy with a confederate flag patch on his tattered jeans upbraided us for not giving Trump a chance. I did not engage with him but some of our number did. He informed us that he wasn’t homeless, he was a bum and damn proud of it. Why that’s better is beyond me. It’s a pity that he didn’t have a sign proclaiming: Riverfront Bums For Trump. He delivered something that could be called either a stinky soliloquy or a rancid rant, here’s the gist of it:
What the fuck is wrong with you fucking people? The man has been President for 30 minutes. Give him a chance. Why don’t you damn moonbats go somewhere else and stop ruining my view.
He then pulled out his pet rat and began juggling it. I am not making this up, y’all. That was when marchers stopped engaging with him. Who wants to engage with a rat juggling Trumper, after all. I bet you don’t have those in your town. I almost suggested that he show up at Trump Tower and declare his fealty to the Insult Comedian. I bit my tongue because this is one of the so-called forgotten people who I would prefer to forget.
I had to peel off from the protest at the mid-way point to go home and check on the aforementioned ailing feline. My brain wanted to march the next day but my legs weren’t crazy about the idea. Besides, we had a Krewe du Vieux commitment. The New OrleansWomen’s March was a rousing success with an estimated crowd of 10K. It was one of the biggest non-Carnival marches in the city’s long history. I’m very proud of my people. Of course, we’re a blue island in a sea of red so it didn’t surprise me.
